aibu to not make a packed lunch for my nearly 15 year old DC

[menohnopausal]

Genuinely prepared to be told AIBU, but my first two DC started fending for themselves when they started high school (ie at about 12). They generally did a combo of school lunches, local shop lunches, and making their own packed lunches.

DC3 has been doing the same for the last couple of years, although with a significantly more extravagant taste in shop lunches. We agreed on a budget for shop food (£3.50 a day), to be supplemented with packed lunches if needed.

She's now asking either for me yet increase the lunch budget to buy more expensive lunches, or for me to make her packed lunches because she CBA.

Apparently ALL her friends get their lunch made for them. Is this likely to be true? If so, I'll get back to the lunch-making grind!

Also, I'm tickled by the irony of your user name @alloutofcareunits 😂 (I do get what you're saying though)

You would make your child pay for their own lunch... AT SCHOOL?????????

Haha it's a quote from the TV series Catastrophe, I do often feel this way at work 😂 and fair enough if kids think it's cringe for Mam to make their packed lunch but it's nice to have the option. The kids I care for don't have that though I make sure my staff always offer to make every meal for them even though they're perfectly capable of doing it themselves (and have often had to fend for themselves as very young children)

Glad you said that.......I can now confess to making sandwiches for my 30+ Yr old sons if they want them🙈 I know they are perfectly capable of sorting their own lunch out but it's how I show I care🥰

cereal in bed every morning??? that sounds like a luxury - surely it gets spilled sometimes?

I have no problem with making a packed lunch as it's lots cheaper than £3.50 and probably much more varied. And can be thrown together whilst sorting out everything else at breakfast time.

I wouldn't want to be giving more cash every day for a supermarket lunch. If other friends are buying lunches from school and that costs more then would give more money so she can buy lunch with her friends at school.

Would a compromise be that she makes her lunch herself but gets to choose the items from the shop that she'd like to put in it?

I make packed lunch for all of us including DH every day as I need to make it for myself anyway.

Yes sometimes it is annoying, however, I don’t want them wasting money buying food.

Also, I was made to do everything myself from a young age and didn’t really feel cared for by my parents. They have the rest of their lives to do this stuff and hope they will remember me as a nice mum after they’ve left home.

@alloutofcareunits I agree and I say the same thing on threads where kids of 10 and up are expected to do their own laundry. I made sandwiches for anyone who wanted them all the way through school including sixth form, but after primary I didn't add fruit, cake bar etc, they chose their own and packed it along with the sandwiches. They also had money on lunch cards and some days they would say no thanks to sandwiches and buy lunch instead.

We’d pay for DS15 to have school lunches, but he’d rather take a packed lunch so he usually makes his own. He’ll buy the odd meal deal out of his pocket money.

I did make my teens their lunch, but in reality it was to ensure they ate decently. If they did their own they wouldn't bother, or buy crap food from the corner store near the school or Macdonald's.

They did do their own laundry from the age of 13 though.

We play to our strengths. I make the sandwich, DD fetches the yogurt and fruit, finds a Tupperware box with a matching lid (my bugbear ) and puts it in her bag. I’m faster at doing the sandwich, she’s more patient with the other stuff.

We all took pack ups and it was rarely a one person job, usually at least 2 people on it. 4 rounds of sandwiches in the fridge, crisps cake or chocolate bar, bit of fruit in the lunch bag, done in minutes. My 6 year old grandson can make his own sandwich and choose what he want to go with it, his 2 Yr old brother never leaves the house without packing a bag of snacks, he can't make a sandwich yet but it won't be long. Never too early to teach self sufficiency

Lunch gets made by the husband during school time for the kids who are 22, 15 and nearly 13 because he makes them when he makes his. It's not because they can't or don't even though they have additional needs, it's because then we actually have enough bread/fillings for packed lunches and when he has emptied them he is more likely to stop and buy more on his way home from work. They make food for themselves at home, but they are not always good at considering each other, sometimes they are more pacman than person lol which is fine but they only make whatever food requires the least amount of effort and they can't join up the dots to go oh I have finished all the milk/bread/cereal I should pick some up or even just add it to the shopping list or message Dad to get some.

@Mossstitch @Motherhubbardscupboard there are so many threads on here about teens with anxiety, poor mental health, mental health services (I work very closely with clinical psychologists) yet parents on here happily have really young kids taking responsibility for their own parenting eg laundry, making own meals, etc. seeing it as promoting independence or whatever. It's a complicated dynamic that I won't bother to go into here but they are absolutely linked. When I taught teenage parents I made them toast, crumpets, tea, coffee every day - they were more than capable of making their own but it's really important for people to feel cared for. I still have contact with some of them and they still remember this fondly years later - the point being that hopefully they'll remember how it felt and will do the same for their own children. And yes, I made my adult daughter's sandwich quite often, because it's a nice thing to do. 🤷🏼‍♀️

Basic parenting is helping your kids to get ready for the adult world. If at 15 a child can't make a packed lunch it's a problem. How will they learn if mum/dad always do it.
I was actually quite happy when DD2 started secondary school and I didn't have to do packed lunches anymore ( now I have another child so back to making sandwiches in September)!

@Crystallizedring it's not about not being able to make one, it's a simple task and if they prefer to do it then great! Absolutely teach them but in the midst of negotiating friendships, GCSEs, hobbies, relationships, all the things posters here worry about and have issues with teen mental health, is it really a chore to make a packed lunch up for your child? Read my comments in my last post, feeling cared for and nurtured is far more important than the basic ability to throw a sandwich and some fruit into a lunch bag, it's hardly a 'life skill'

My first year after college as a teacher I moved home and my mum would pack my lunch every day!!
It definitely showed me she cared!

We have 3 kids needing lunch currently. Shop lunches would be over £60 a week. Hell no way am I paying that for u healthy crap. I can make them great packed lunches for way less.

My dc get £20 a week - on the basis that it's entirely up to them if they spend it on lunch at school or keep it and make lunch from the abundance of free stuff at home. They mix and match a bit but mostly take their own

I don’t think making a sandwich is such a complex task that it requires years of practice in order to be capable of doing it as an adult. I also see the benefit in modelling kindness and compassion to the people you love.

My dad made my lunch every day until I left home at 18. And yet somehow miraculously I was able to do it when I moved out.

Now I make lunch for my teens. DD18 is currently doing exams and I make her breakfast too. It’s just a way of demonstrating love and kindness.

I expect teen DC to put packed lunch food on the list if they need it, and make the lunch themselves.

But I have a coffee and chat while they make it, will help out if they’re in a hurry, and make them a home cooked supper most evenings. So I think it all balances out, in terms of them feeling cared for.

I enjoy feeling cared for now at the grand old age of nearly 40. There’s a compromise who made here @menohnopausal it would do no harm to you or her for you to make her lunch every once in while it might make her feel more loved and cared for and it might give you a couple of moments to talk about things in the morning whilst you’re there making her lunch and she’s waiting for you.

Yes, it's a complicated dynamic, agreed. But there are other ways of caring - and showing care - than this simple way involving doing stuff for children. (Saying which is not at all intended to denigrate your way of doing it.)

My own children, aged fourteen and younger, (long ago) used to make my packed lunch along with their own. I flatter myself they knew I loved them dearly despite this. (To be sure, they were paid pocket money for this and other chores (on top of a small basic amount independent of chore-doing).)

Result? Not anxiety or poor mental health. Rather, PhDs in STEM, successful careers, partnerships, socialisation, motherhood/fatherhood of lovely, successful grandchildren for me.

Maybe I was just lucky. It is, though, again, complicated ... but perhaps it's worth knowing the forces/signs don't all point one way.

i did
i found it easier in the kitchen
but every family does their own thing

My kids made their own since the age of about 9 or 10. To stop them complaining about what I gave them.

I would say that you have reviewed the daily cap and agree that it needs to be revised, but to the amount a school dinner would cost!